Born in Canada to Dutch parents, who moved back to the Netherlands when he was two years old, Robert van Voren has nevertheless always felt strongly Canadian. Both his mother and father were journalists, with his father later becoming the Netherland’s first ever public relations officer.

Mental health disorders can be understood on various levels, from the phenomenological to the neurobiological. In parallel, they are considered to arise through a wide range of influences, from a person’s social environment to their genetics and neurodevelopment. Integrating these elements into one complex picture of psychopathology is increasingly challenging. In this issue, Ana Gómez-Carrillo…

Nigeria’s National Mental Health Act 2021 was signed into law on Jan 5, 2023, after two decades of struggle to repeal the outdated, colonial mental health legislation. With this achievement, Nigeria joins the few African countries that have revised or enacted new mental health legislation in accordance with WHO’s call for member countries to use legal reforms to end human rights violations…

Drug use is an increasing global public health concern. We reviewed the prevalence and patterns of drug use, drug use disorders, and the extent of treatment services in 21 countries and one territory in the Eastern Mediterranean region from 2010 to 2022. Online databases were systematically searched on April 17, 2022, along with other sources for grey literature. The extracted data were analysed…

Psychiatry has increasingly adopted explanations for psychopathology that are based on neurobiological reductionism. With the recognition of health disparities and the realisation that someone’s postcode can be a better predictor of health outcomes than their genetic code, there are increasing efforts to ensure cultural and social–structural competence in psychiatric practice. Although…